USS St. Lo

The USS St. Lo (CVE-63) was a US Navy aircraft carrier that was laid down on 23 January 1943 by Kaiser Shipyards and commissioned on 23 October of that same year. She was named Chapin Bay and Midway before being renamed St. Lo, after the town in France that was subjected to fierce fighting during Operation Cobra. On 25 October 1944, USS St. Lo came under attack by the Japanese Shikishima Special Attack Unit's kamikaze pilots, and Lieutenant Yukio Seki crashed into the flight deck at 10:51 AM. The bomb penetrated the flight deck and exploded in the hangar as aircraft were being refueled and rearmed, setting off a gasoline fire that caused six secondary explosions, including the ship's bomb and torpedo magazine. Within 30 minutes, the ship had sunk and taken 143 of the ship's 889 crewmen with her. She was the first major warship to be sunk in a kamikaze attack.